Judge Agrees that Former Guantanamo Prosecutor Has a Case

Retired Colonel Morris Davis was the Pentagon’s chief prosecutor at Guantanamo for a couple years. But he quit on principle, going public with his view that the Pentagon had stacked the deck against the prisoners down there.

He took a job at the Library of Congress as assistant director in the foreign affairs, defense, and trade division of the Congressional Research Service. But he kept speaking out about Guantanamo, and he was eventually fired from his job.

On January 8, he sued the Library of Congress for violating his First Amendment and Fifth Amendment rights. (See http://progressive.org/wx010120.html.)

And at least early on, it looks like he has a good case.

U.S. District Court Judge Reggie B. Walton, in a ruling on January 20, found that Colonel Davis had demonstrated a substantial “likelihood of success on the merits” of his case. “Essentially, the record before the Court suggests that the plaintiff was terminated immediately after two specific opinion editorials he authored were published in national newspapers. . . . It appears that the content of the plaintiff’s published opinions was one of the reasons, if not the primary reason, he was fired.” (Judge Walton, by the way, was appointed by George W. Bush.)

But Judge Walton nevertheless refused to order a preliminary injunction against the Congressional Research Service, which would have prohibited the service from finalizing Davis’s termination. Judge Walton said that David did not meet all the necessary criteria for a preliminary injunction.

The ACLU, which filed the suit on Davis’s behalf, saw the bright side in the ruling.

“It gives us hope that things will be made right in the future,” it said.

Colonel Davis himself is still in a fighting mood.

“While I’m disappointed that the Court didn’t immediately take the necessary steps to right this wrong and stop the Library from firing me,” he said, “I am hopeful the ultimate outcome of this case will recognize my right to free expression. I will continue the fight to get my job at CRS back, although it’s a fight I never should have had to undertake.”

Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine. To subscribe for just $14.97 a year, just click here.